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Kansan
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS Monday, March 26, 2001
Sports: Kansas' season came to an end with an 80-64 loss to Illinois in the NCAA tournament. SEE PAGE 1B
(USPS 650-640) • VOL. 111 NO. 109
Inside: Homework and lack of money caused some students to enjoy their break in Lawrence. SEE PAGE 3A
For comments, contact Lori O'Toole or Mindie Miller at 864-4810 or editor@kansan.com
WWW.KANSAN.COM
Service trip emphasizes border issues
By Erin Adamson
writer @kanson.com
Kansas staff writer
On the United States side of the concrete-lined Rio Grande, people in the train yards, highways and two-car garage neighborhoods bustled along.
Just 30 feet south of the river in Mexico, KU students played with children who lived without running water, plumbing, sewage or city electricity in the neighborhood of Anapra, on the western outskirts of Ciudad Juarez. They could see the privileged North just across the river.
Eight KU students traveled to the international border at El Paso and Cludad Juarez with the Alternative Spring Breaks program and spent their break learning about issues facing the border region.
Thanasis Saourus, Lymbia, Cyprus sophomore, said the trip was an eye-opening experience.
"I knew we were going to a poor town, but I couldn't imagine that it could be so poor," Saourus said. "Especially when it borders the U.S., one of the richest countries in the world."
The 2000 United States Census shows that the nation's Hispanic population has grown by 58 percent in the last decade and the Kansas Hispanic population has grown by 100 percent. The El Paso trip was designed to help students learn about the reality of mass immigration on one of the busiest border areas in the country.
Eric Snider, a student site leader for the El Paso trip, said that while the trip included service work, it focused on guided education about border issues.
The students did service work one day by helping homeowners build their straw-bale houses. The desert community was designed to provide affordable, environmentally friendly housing for low-income families.
Annunciation House, an organization that runs two houses of hospitality for undocumented immigrants in El Paso and a women's shelter and a solidarity house in Juarez, organized the week's events for the KU students.
Activities included working at a children's library, talking with the public relations representative for the Delphi corporation's factory in Juarez, attending a deportation hearing in El Paso, touring the United States side of the border with a Border Patrol agent and learning about a nonprofit law firm that helps illegal immigrants apply for work visas and U.S. residency.
"I think that we had the best site in the sense that we dealt with things that affect everyone," Haas said. "It's a wake-up call to people."
Katy Haas, Overland Park senior, said that meeting immigrants and learning about their reasons for crossing into the United States illegally added a human face to the issue of border control that she hadn't understood by reading news stories. For instance, Border Patrol agents commonly refer to illegal immigrants they capture as apprehensions, the term perhaps adding to the migrants' dehumanization.
Topeka sophomores Katie Reser, Whitney McMahan, Marissa Blanco, Crystal Hudson and friend Andrea Struthers went to Los Angeles for spring break and attended a taping of the Price is Right. Hudson was a contestant on the program and won the Showcase Showdown. Contributed art.
The students spent a night in the shantytown of Anapra, where most families live on the standard $3.30 per day salary that the border maquiladoras pay. Maquiladoras are U.S. and foreign-owned factories that operate on the Mexican side of the border and benefit from cheap Mexican labor.
Ruben Garcia, the founder of
Cristina Estrada, who runs a children's library in Anapora, worked for 14 years in maquiladoras and estimated that 90 percent of the working community in Anapora worked in maquiladora.
Estrada said that the maquilladoras were not an economic solution for Mexicans on the border, but that people had no choice but to work in them. Estrada said that, like most of the people living in Anapra, her family came from another part of Mexico to find work on the border. When they arrived, the work they found on the Mexican side of the border was in maquilladoras.
See TRIP on page 3A
Price is Right for student
Sophomore wins car, other prizes
By Sarah Warren
writer @kansan.com
Kansas staff writer
Crystal Hudson got more than a tan on her spring break trip to California. She got thousands of dollars in fabulous prizes, too.
The Topeka sophomore cleaned up on the CBS game show *The Price Is Right*, and won a dishwasher, snowmobile, car, living room set, karake machine and $1,000.
"I don't know where I'm going to put all of it." Hudson said.
Hudson and four friends camped out for two days to be five of the 350 people to get in for a taping. Whitney McMahan, Topeka sophomore, was one of the group's members.
"We went to L.A. specifically to get on, but the first time we didn't get in," McMahann said. "So we went back at 1 a.m. the next day to get in."
The show's official Web site (www.cbs.com/daytime/price) says that the Price is Right audience members line up at 6 in the morning and earlier to attend tapings.
The girls were the first in line for the 2:30 p.m. taping and thought that one of them
would be picked because of their place in line, Hudson said.
Hudson was one of the first to be called by announcer Rod Roddy to "Come on down," but she didn't get on stage until the second half of the show — when she correctly guessed the price of a dishwasher.
Once side-by-side with host Bob Barker, she played the game "Now or Then." Six items were placed in front of Hudson and she was asked to guess if the price tagged on each item was from 2001 or from 1985. To win, she had to match the correct price with the correct year for three items in a row.
She missed the first match, but she aed the next three, and was awarded a snowmobile.
When Hudson lined up to spin the wheel to earn a spot in the Showcase Showdown the wheel stopped and the arrow pointed at $1.00, netting her a $1,000 bonus and a chance for even more prizes.
As if she didn't already have enough winnings, she won the Showcase Showdown and a 2001 Mercury Grand Marquee, among other things.
"We went up on stage after she won, screaming and stuff," McMahan said.
Neither could Hudson. It won't be real, she said, until her winnings show up on her doorstep.
"They'll tell me where I can pick up the car and the snowmobile in my hometown and then the other stuff they are supposed to send
me in 90 days," Hudson said.
She said she has to pay the sales tax for the car and snowmobile, but a bigger worry is what she will do with her prizes.
"I don't know what I'm going to do with
some of that stuff," she said. "We've got a really big basement. That's probably where some of it will go."
The show will air April 18.
Edited by Doug Pacey
It's a Small World
Program breaks language barrier
Women fill time learning English
By Michelle Ward writer@kansan.com Kansan staff writer
Peering through oversized reading glasses, her eyes do not miss a thing written on the chalkboard. She writes everything in her notebook — from the lessons on the board to class discussions. At more than 70 years old, Blyuma Alterman is learning English.
Alternate made a career of helping people as a physician in her native Russia. But when the retired doctor moved to the United States, it was her turn to seek help.
So she enrolled in classes at Small World, a volunteer-based organization that twice a week teaches English to women from more than 20 countries.
Alternan didn't know a word of English when she started class, but four years later she has progressed to the intermediate group, which is the third of five levels at the school.
Kathy Mulnazini, English teacher, tries to explain plaid to her class after a reading assignment March 17. Small World, a volunteer-based organization, offers English classes twice a week at First Presbyterian Church. Photo by Selena Jabara/KANSAN
In at least one way, Alterman is a typical Small World student: When she first moved to Lawrence, she lived with her son Michael, director of the biochemical research laboratory. Nearly 65 percent of the organization's students have ties to University of Kansas faculty and students
Alterman studies English with four other women — two from Saudi Arabia, one from Korea and one from Brazil. The group studied the past-progressive verb tense during a recent class, which confused Alterman and the other students.
But she keeps plugging away, and says her goal gives her strength and comfort.
"I go home and study English," she said. "I like studying it. For me, it's my medicine."
At a room down the hall in the First Presbyterian Church, 2415 Clinton Parkway, Yan Ling sat among Koreans,
Brazilians and other Chinese women in the advanced intermediate class.
Ling came prepared for class with her homework complete and her electronic dictionary, which translates words from Chinese to English, in tow. During the 90-
minute class, the six students worked on understanding taped English dialogues.
understating tape English dialogues. As a group, they could usually put all the
See PROGRAM on page 3A
Coalitions differ on aims of students' legislative lobbying
By Brooke Hesler
Kansan staff writer
The Delta Force andVOICE coalitions want to make sure state senators, representatives and city commissioners take students' concerns into account. The two coalitions, however, have different ideas about how to do it.
Jessica Bankston, VOICE presidential candidate, and running mate, Hunter Harris, promised to lobby the state legislature heavily in the fall for the reinstatement of the two-for-one technology fee. When Gov. Bill Graves submitted his budget proposal earlier this year, it did not provide for the continuation of the fee. Right now, students pay $1 per credit hour into the fee. The state doubles that, paying $2 per credit hour.
Bankston also said the coalition wanted to create a position in which a student would work with the Lawrence City Commission and be in contact with commissioners all year.
Earlier this year, Bankston said lobbying was an efficient way of getting things done.
"The point is to have a student who is part of the dialogue,"
Make Yours Heart
Bankston said earlier this month.
The coalition is still ironing out the details, Harris said. The group does not know if the position will be an appointed or elected one. Justin Mills. Delia Ford preside geran can.
didate, and running mate, Kyle Browning, had different ideas when it came to lobbying.
Delta Force wants to restructure the Student Legislative Awareness Board, a part of Senate. The board is in charge of coordinating lobbying efforts and making students aware of legislation that affects them. Mills said Bankston, the board's current director, was doing a good job.
Mills and Browning said SLAB should focus more on local issues and educating students about the issues affecting them.
"I am not attacking her or the job she does in any way," he said. "We just think some things could be changed."
Browning also said lobbying in Topeka
"From my perspective, information hasn't really been passed along to students." Browning said. "Students want to get involved."
proved ineffective at times.
"It hasn't really accomplished much," Browning said. "We've had tuition increases and education cuts. We need to shift our focus back to Lawrence."
Both Mills and Browning said lobbying in Topeka was important, but that local issues took precedence. Browning cited the housing ordinance that many students actively opposed.
"A lot of people really came out of the woodwork for that." Browning said.
Ryan Neeland, Overland Park sophomore, said he thought it was time changes were made.
"Lobbying is important because it lets senators and representatives know that we do care what's going on, but then again, it takes a lot of time, and it looks like it doesn't do much." Neeland said.
Edited by Jennifer Volodze